Page 12 of Miss Dramatic
“I’d be delighted.” Introducing Lady Iris to Gavin would get the small talk over with, a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Rose and her ladyship made a leisurely progress across the terrace, and all the while, Gavin stood by the door as if awaiting his cue.
“Mr. DeWitt,” Rose said, offering the requisite curtsey. “Good evening.”
“Mrs. Roberts, and… Lady Iris, I believe?” His bow was elegance personified. “Might you do the honors, Mrs. Roberts?” He wore his gracious-gentleman smile, though on him the polite expression shaded toward genuine friendly interest. He did that with his eyes and with a slight inclination of his posture, regarding a lady not boldly so much as sincerely, as if he truly was pleased to be in conversation with her.
His sincerity was his most devastating magic trick of all. Rose reminded herself of that as Lady Iris reprised her fascination with native herbs. Gavin nodded, asked questions, and by a gaze that never strayed, by the cadence with which he conducted his conversation, he put forth every facsimile of rapt attention.
The third bell sounded, interrupting Lady Iris’s panegyric to St.-John’s-wort.
“I must find Miss Peasegood,” Lady Iris said, snapping her fan closed. “I promised to dine with her. This has been a delightful conversation, Mrs. Roberts, Mr. DeWitt. Perhaps we can continue it another time. You will excuse me?”
She swanned off, as graceful as a sloop running close to the wind on a sparkling summer morning.
“I now know more about St.-John’s-wort than I ever sought to learn,” Gavin said quietly.
“I was treated to a discourse on peppermint before she asked to make your acquaintance. We should count ourselves lucky she didn’t regale us with her views on the subject of purges.”
Rose regretted that last remark. Lady Iris was devoted to her medicinals, and purges were hardly polite.
Gavin winged his arm and turned that enchanting smile on Rose. “I do count myself lucky. Exceedingly so. Shall we to the buffet?”
She slipped her fingers around his elbow. “You need not flirt, Mr. DeWitt. In fact, I’d ask you not to.”
“Who’s flirting? Lady Iris strikes me as a woman who has memorized an herbal’s worth of soliloquys, but as soon as she spotted me by the door, she had her introduction. At the first opportunity, her inspection complete, she sailed away.”
“She did, didn’t she?” Interesting. “Is there anybody else to whom you’d like an introduction? I know some of these women from my few forays into London, but Lady Tavistock also ensured we were all acquainted over afternoon tea trays.”
“The rest of the introductions can wait. I am famished.”
He managed to imbue even an admission of hunger with the weight of a confidence. Rose resigned herself to a long meal, though perhaps it was best to endure that ordeal and be done with it. She’d avoided him for two weeks in Hampshire, and it had been a very long fortnight indeed.
They filled plates and found a table in the garden by the spent roses. Footmen lit torches, though darkness was better than an hour away, and other guests strolled past in search of their own tables.
“On the grouse moors,” Gavin said, “the ratio of men to ladies is more unbalanced than this, and yet, in this context, I find the lack of parity unsettling. I feel as if I ought to have four arms and practice bowingen croix.”
Rose buttered her bread. She should have known even Gavin’s small talk would be more than idle chatter.
“I suppose it’s a matter of setting. When you played in the Shakespearean casts, men’s roles were more abundant than female characters. Did that strike you as odd?”
“The ratio is better than four to one, nearly eight hundred men’s roles, and about one hundred fifty for women. But then, women were not permitted to act in the Bard’s day.”
“Youcountedthe roles by gender?”
He took a spoonful of cold potato soup. “A great deal of idle time can befall an actor who starts off with the minor parts.”
“Do you miss it?” Rose fashioned herself a butter-and-cheese sandwich. She did not care for cold soup even in summer. “You changed troupes, as I recall.”
He paused between spoonfuls. “I joined a southern ensemble. The Black Country has its charms, but there’s a reprise of feudalism taking hold up there. Here, Henry Wortham can move from the forge to the role of understeward, and that’s a step up. Most families would consider such good luck every third generation to be a wonderful legacy. My own family has done quite well in recent years, from a humble start as chandlers. In the north…”
Rose had traveled enough to know of what he spoke. “The weavers are all out of work, after generations of being able to support their families with their looms. The sawyers are out of work as steam replaces them by the dozens. The wages available in the factories are a slow road to starvation and the working conditions horrific. True, some men have jobs maintaining the factory machines, but not nearly as many as had honorable work with the hand looms.”
Gavin put down his spoon. “While the few families fortunate enough to own a coal mine, or have some blunt to begin with, become wealthier and wealthier. I’m sure the south is subject to the same trends, but we haven’t the coal here they have elsewhere, and somebody still has to grow the crops.”
Perhaps an actor was doomed to pay attention to the wider world. To notice that world because the stage had to represent life realistically, maybe not in particulars of dress or diction, but in themes and personalities.
“I prefer the south,” Rose said, “though I avoid London.” Had avoided Society generally until recently.
